Ask the new UX champion to sponsor a Lean UX project (to make changes in an efficient and measurable way)

User centered design

To understand how a UX project should be conducted it helps to consider User Centered Design (UCD), one of the key tenets behind most UX work.

The core pillars of UCD are:

A focus on the goals of users and outcomes

Decisions start and end with users, what they want and need

Testing with users should be part of each stage of the project to keep it rooted in the above

The process should include iterative stages which allow for ongoing improvement and evolution of the product (website or application)

This also helps balance any organisational objectives that may not be grounded in an understanding of real users or customers. It also helps focus an organisation on making changes that will have an impact by ensuring they are solving the problems of real people.

Lean UX

These pillars also sit well with the principles of Lean UX, another helpful methodology for lightweight, hypothesis-lead user testing, aimed at validating assumptions, designs and prototypes quickly. Without this component, it is often hard to deliver user testing if you work in an Agile way because of the short time scales involved.

The foundations of Lean UX is an iterative cycle:

As a digital agency, these are fundamental cornerstones for a process that we run for many clients, often to tight deadlines (compared to a product team or large software house).

Benefits

In an agency / client relationship there are further benefits both in terms of aligning organisations around the needs of users and the strategic goals of the organisation. Such a process can also help mitigate some of the risk that is otherwise inevitable, where the value or effectiveness of solutions can’t be proven until very late in a project.

A user centered approach can also help ensure more open and healthy longer term relationships between the client and agency, where both parties work toward the development of a more sustainable web platform, that can be improved iteratively and effectively over time.

If you’re interested in talking more about how our process might benefit your project or organisation, we'd love to share our knowledge and experience with you.